Tired from the climb, Masie plopped down into one of the beach chairs. The chair was very comfy and had a little holder on the side for a cup, or a can of beer, or soda, or juice, or whatever sort of beverage you're into.

She took a few deep breaths. The air was clean and cool on top of the tree. The sun was warm and bright. This forced her to squint a little bit. Masie sighed; she wished she'd thought to bring her sunglasses. Then she pulled some animal crackers from the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt: a monkey, a zebra, a hippopotamus, and half of a lion – the back half.

While chilling out in the comfy beach chair and resting her head on her hand, Masie studied the crackers. She wanted to devise an order in which to consume the animal crackers that was both fair and unbiased. It was difficult, but she eventually decided to eat the half of a lion first. One by one, Masie popped the animal crackers in her mouth and ate them. And, just as she was crunching on the fourth cracker, a voice from behind her said, "Yo, what's up?"

Masie turned slowly around and found herself face to face with a dude in a really poor bear costume. The fur on the costume was striped in yellow and black. The costume also had a pair of wings duct taped to the back. The dude in the bear costume wore a pair of black sunglasses.

"Dude," said Masie, "what the fuck?"

"What?" said the dude in the bear costume. "What's the problem?"

"Are you – wearing a bear costume?"

"Oh, right. Yeah, I'm a beebear."

"A what?"

"A beebear. You know – half bumblebee half bear." The dude moved his shoulders around to make the wings flap on the costume. But it didn't work too well. He tried for a good minute or so. Then one of the wings fell off. The wing was made of cardboard. When the wing fell off, the beebear shrugged and kicked it.

"Uh… anyway," said the dude in the beebear costume. "So yeah – I'm a beebear."

"A beebear?" Masie deadpanned.

"Yeah," said the beebear.

"Riiiight… that's pretty retarded."

The beebear shrugged. "I live in this tree. You musta climbed up while I was in the kitchen getting some lemonade." The beebear held up his right hand (the bear costume cut off at the wrists) in which he held a tall glass of icy lemonade. Inside the glass of lemonade was a long, red twisty straw that made a series of elaborate loops.

"Yeah," said Masie, "I climbed the tree. What's up with this tree? It wasn't here yesterday. Is it new or something?"

"Nah, it's one of them mobile trees."

"A what?"

"A mobile tree. It's kinda like a mobile home except a tree. Follow?"

"Dude, are you saying that this tree has wheels and that you drive it around?"

"No, no, no: it floats. You know, like, in the air? Sorta like a hot air balloon. It's pretty cool. Bought it on eBay."

"eBay, huh?"

"Mmm-hmmm," said the beebear while sipping his lemonade.

Masie sighed, rolled her eyes, and popped an animal cracker in her mouth. It was a bison.

"Say…" said the beebear, who was eyeballing Masie's box of animal crackers, "what you got there? Are those animal crackers?"

"Uh, yeah.…"

"Nice! I love animal crackers but I don't get off this tree very often, you know? You think I can get a couple?"

Masie laughed loudly. "Pfffft… fuck no!"

The beebear frowned. "What?! Come on! Don't be stingy. You can have some of my lemonade if you want."

"I don't want any of your stupid lemonade."

"Yeah, but the point is I'm offering it to you. I'm, like, sharing. That ought to count for something."

"No way, dude. That doesn't count for squat. Keep your cruddy lemonade. I love animal crackers. Get your own. Use your cardboard wings or your flying tree and go to the store or something."

"Dude, I can't go to the store."

"Why not?"

"I'm a beebear."

"So?"

"Beebears don't go to stores," shrugged the beebear.

"Oh, really?" said Masie skeptically.

"Yup," said the beebear. "Beebears just sort of hang out in trees. Sometimes they play air hockey." The beebear pointed to the air hockey table. Masie listened, nodding attentively. "And sometimes they go to amusement parks. Especially the ones that have those little remote control boats. Those things are awesome."

"Remote control boats are pretty cool."

"Fuck yeah. But, like I was saying, beebears don't go to the store. Actually we don't work either."

"You don't work?"

"Nah."

"Must be nice," she said.

"Yeah, it's okay. I mean, a job and stuff would be cool, but I'm totally down with being a beebear, and beebears don't work. It's in the rules. "

"Well, I have a job."

"Oh yeah, what do you do?"

"I'm a pirate."

"Dude, you're not a pirate."

"Yuh-huh. I am so a pirate."

"Well, what sort of booty do you pirate then?"

"Whatever I want."

The beebear eyeballed her animal crackers. "Do you pirate animal crackers?"

"Yep," said Masie, who gleefully ate a handful of animals crackers while savoring the envious expression on the beebear's face.

"Come on!" whined the beebear. "Give me some animal crackers. You don't even have to give me a bunch, just a couple – you can give me the animals you don't like! I'll eat whatever!"

"No way, man. I like 'em all. Anyway, pirates don't give animal crackers to beebears. It's a rule."

"That's bull."

"Sorry, dude. Pirates have rules too, and I'm not about to break pirate rules. That shit'll get you, like, tossed in the drink and fed to sharks and what not."

"Damn it!" said the beebear. He folded his arms, stomped his foot, and pouted.

Masie ate a few more crackers. Then she stretched out and yawned. Tell you what," she said, "why don't we play air hockey? If you win I'll give you all of my animal crackers, and if I win I get whatever I want."

The beebear was totally down for that. He was really good at air hockey. Unfortunately Masie was way better.

So Masie kicked the beebear's ass at air hockey. He scored once to her ten times. Exasperated, the beebear called it a fluke and demanded a rematch. Masie obliged, and proceeded to trounce the beebear yet again, this time by a score of ten to nothing.

After getting trashed at air hockey, the beebear was thoroughly dejected. He just sat slouched in his comfy beach chair, grumbled, and moped.

"Okay," said Masie, "I won, so now you've gotta make me a beebear."

"What?!"

"I beat you at air hockey, now you've got to give me whatever I want: I want to be a beebear."

"No way! You can't just like up and decide to be a beebear."

"Oh yeah?"

"Nope. That's not how it works. You need, like, a costume. And some wings and stuff. It's way too complicated."

"Then you can make me one."

"I don't know… I'm not really into doing stuff for people."

"Dude, you promised!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yeah, you did. Liar!"

"This is stupid. I thought you were a pirate."

"I'll retire from piracy."

"You can't just retire."

"Yeah, I can."

"You don't make the rules," the beebear sighed.

"Listen, either you make me a beebear or you are a liar and you'll never get any animal crackers."

"So if I make you a stupid beebear costume, you'll give me some animal crackers?"

"I'll give you a few. Like the broken ones. And the camels. I'm not really into camels."

"Dude! The camel is my favorite!"

"Well, that's great then 'cause the camels are what you're getting."

"Nice!"

So the beebear made a pair of wings out of an old pizza box, and using some yellow masking tape, he made some yellow stripes on Masie's hooded sweatshirt. Her beebear costume was even shittier than his, but she was pretty stoked nonetheless.

Masie gave the beebear all of her camels, and he ate them greedily. Later that afternoon, they flew over to the amusement park to play with the remote control boats. It was a pretty sweet day.

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